


Asclepius

by osunism



Series: Get Us There [16]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Companion Inquisitor, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mild Gore, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6288424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dreams he is crouched along the twilight border of Lowtown and Darktown, dirtied hands cupped in a gesture of begging, hoping for the cool metallic feel of a silver or two, enough for some dust…enough to eat. Either one will do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So after doing the _Inquisitor as a Companion_ meme on Tumblr, I was prompted by quite a few people to do an AU in which Samson and Hadiza meet under the circumstances of her companionship rather than her as the Inquisitor. I want to keep this one short since it's just me playing around. I love these two so much, and it's so fun to see the levels and angles of their relationship I can explore under varying circumstances. I have opted to break this story up into scenes of three during various time periods of their burgeoning relationship. Since those reading are likely very intimately familiar with how these two are together, there was no need to get bogged down in exposition.

**I.**

When the ox-head Inquisitor turns him over to Dagna for study, callously waving his hand as if he is so much refuse to be tossed aside, he wants to spit at the qunari’s feet. He wants to curse and rail at them, continue to spit insults and hurl obscenities about the falsehood they hide behind. They are the Chantry’s faithful being led by the very race that sought to destroy them all not two years past. He is disgusted with this, but defeat has shamed him to silence, and he knows it is only a matter of time before the Maker calls him home for judgement.

Somehow, he dreads what he will find when his time comes.

The days with Dagna are irritating at first, consisting of various prodding and invasive questions. She takes samples of his skin, his hair, his saliva, his blood, and every other humor she can wring from him. Samson has never felt more exposed and reduced to nothingness than when he has to shit in front of the dwarf, who doesn’t bat an eye at the lack of privacy.

When the pangs of withdrawal begin, the days drag on, subsumed in an endless chorus of fire in his belly, hotter and sharper than hunger, deeper than the summer sickness that arose in the slums of Kirkwall in the hot months. He curls in on himself, the damp chill of the undercroft offering no relief to his fevered skin, his clothes sweat-damp and smelling. He dreams that he is back in Kirkwall, the sky blocked out by the silhouette of innumerable ramshackle buildings trapped within a fist of mountainous stone.

He dreams he is crouched along the twilight border of Lowtown and Darktown, dirtied hands cupped in a gesture of begging, hoping for the cool metallic feel of a silver or two, enough for some dust…enough to eat. Either one will do.

He wakes, cold, shivering, damp, and alone. There are no people, and he cannot see the sky.

“He’s been like this for three days, now,” Dagna is saying, but her voice is small, far away, standing just beyond the border of his cell, “and I think this withdrawal is worse. Red lyrium is far more potent as you know.”

“I know.” A softer voice, deeper register, gentle. Samson keeps his back to them, facing the wall. If he doesn’t move, the pain will not worm through his gut like some ravenous parasite seeking to hollow him out.

“I don’t care what it is,” The Inquisitor snaps, “can you fix it or not, Hadiza?”

“It is hard to say, Inquisitor,” she tells him, “I will have to examine him. He is already rare enough that he resists the corruption. Does that not warrant curiosity at least?”

“Of course it does,” the Inquisitor retorts, “it’s why I gave him to Dagna to begin with. She insists that he serves us better alive than dead, which is why I brought you to keep him for running out on his promise early. Now: can you fix this?”

Samson hears a hushed sigh.

“I can.” She says, and Samson knows it for a lie.

“Good,” the Inquisitor says in clipped tones, “then I’ll leave you ladies to it. Hadiza, we’ve business in the Approach when you’re done here. We leave in two days.”

“I understand, Inquisitor,” she says, “however, if it turns out he needs constant care…”

“One of the other healers can see to it.” The Inquisitor interrupts. “I need you out there. No telling what nonsense is going to try and kill me this time around.”

Samson can hear the smile in her voice, and wonders if it’s as soft as she sounds.

“Alright, Inquisitor.”

When he ‘wakes’, she’s kneeling beside him, and the light from the undercroft frames her in a soft corona, giving her an ethereal appearance. He recognizes her face from the Temple, but he had been more focused on the Inquisitor. And she’d not been present at his trial.

“Samson.” She says quietly, “You’re suffering from withdrawal, but I think I can help. I need to examine you, first.”

He doesn’t answer her, and for a moment he limns her in a contemptuous glare, made weak by the pain that wracks his body. Her expression doesn’t change, and she inclines her head a touch, allows him a better look at her eyes, an eddying molten steel, glimmering like gimlets in her dark face. Samson thinks that Andraste herself could not suffuse her face with such unconditional compassion.

He relents, turning his face away from her as if she is the sun risen too early, and she gently places her hands on his. He tries not to recoil, but her hands are slender and dark, soft and gentle. Her fingers curl around his hands and pull them gently away from his belly. He surrenders, gritting his teeth against the pain that is free to roam without the deception of his hands to clutch it tightly to one spot.

“I’m going to need to make contact with your skin,” she tells him softly, “is that alright?”

“Just get on with it.” He tells her through gritted teeth. He catches her grim expression in the corner of his eye, and slowly, she lifts his shirt, revealing the pale skin of his belly. He feels exposed, weak in the face of such gentility, but she lays her cool hands on his skin, careful not to apply too much pressure, careful not to cause him further discomfort.

“Let me know if you need anything, Hadiza,” Dagna says, “I’ll run a few tests, see what else I can find.”

Hadiza nods wordlessly and shuts her eyes. Samson waits, and then feels a flood of warmth in his belly, which then becomes cool and soothing, like the first breath of spring on the heels of winter. He sighs in relief, and visibly relaxes against the cot as soft, blue light engulfs Hadiza’s hands. Maker bless her, whatever else he says, bless her for this.

And then it is over and Hadiza takes her hands away.

“How do you feel?” She asks him, weariness in her voice. The spell took a great deal more mana than she lets on, and Samson can tell. He knows from his past training that healing magic requires a great deal more concentration and finesse than conjuring a fireball. He withholds an answer, hoping it is answer enough. Hadiza watches him a moment longer, and shuts her eyes. He sees her shoulders rise with a deep breath, then fall with a slow exhale. Sweat dampens her brow and in a wild moment of uncertainty, he wants to brush that errant lock of hair behind her ear and thank her.

Instead, he turns away from her.

* * *

**II.**

Samson doesn’t see Hadiza for several weeks, but he thinks of her far more often than he would ever admit. Within the domain of Skyhold he is a pariah, even amongst the other criminals that fill its drafty prison. He works when he is not with Dagna, helping to rebuild the ruined south tower, and he doesn’t miss the casual cruelty of the men and women around him. The spit hurled at his retreating back, a pebble or stone striking his shoulder, and once, his head. Dagna says nothing of the bruise under his right eye, or his split lip. She gets him a healing draught for the bruised bones, and continues her work.

Samson realizes in this sea of contemptuous faces, Hadiza’s is the only one that offered any semblance of compassion. Not sympathy, not pity, just…compassion. And Samson realizes that it is the one thing that has never been offered. In Kirkwall, he would have been a fool to expect anything. Beggars like him were a copper a dozen, as common as the clap in a fleshpot, but this was the first time he realizes how starved he was for it. A kind word, a sympathetic look.

The cool touch of a healing hand.

He banishes the notion, pushes it far from his sentient thoughts, willing the sight of a pair of smoldering silver eyes to be swallowed in the darkness outside of his consciousness.

When she returns to the undercroft, she speaks with Dagna, first, and produces a broken staff, the blade chipped and ruined, the focus shattered, the shaft splintered. Samson sees her right arm is in a sling and she has a bandage on her head. He feels something foreign nudge at his heart. Worry. She’s hurt, but she seems to be bearing it well enough. He sits uncomfortably on the examination table, watching her.

Finally, she notices him, and smiles.

“Samson, you’re looking…” She laughs, “Well…better than when I last saw you. Worse? Maker, what happened to your eye?”

Samson smiles half-heartedly.

“Not everyone is as kind as you are.” He says simply. Hadiza hesitates, then smiles.

“Yes,” She agrees, “I suppose not. Still, if Ronan insists on letting you come to harm when he wants me to ascertain your survival…” Samson sees a gathering storm on her face. She’s upset. Has he upset her?

“Don’t worry your pretty head about me,” he tells her, “not worth you bumping heads with the Inquisitor.”

Hadiza frowns. “Nonsense,” she says, “if he expects his detractors to feel assured that things are well in hand, it can’t get out that he’s allowing prisoners to be abused. Even if people…” She shakes her head, as if to free herself of an unwanted thought. Then, she sweeps toward him, mindful of her injured arm as she stands unnervingly close. Samson leans back a little, alarmed, and then suddenly engulfed in the sweet, powdery scent of her.

“Let’s have a look,” she says, then meets his eyes in a silent question. Samson knows she won’t leave it be if he says no, and so he sighs and turns his head, allowing her to examine the purple and yellow bruise.

“Not a fist,” she says quietly, more to herself than anything, “stone? Rock? Maker, someone threw a _rock_ at you?” She sounds outraged in her quiet voice and Samson smiles.

“Can’t say I don’t deserve it.” He tells her, then grunts, releasing in a deep sigh from the belly as her healing magic knits the cuts, reduces the swelling. Suddenly, he can see out of his eye again and he blinks.

“Better?” She asks.

“Much.” He breathes. “Why’d you do that?”

“You are beaten,” Hadiza says simply, “what is there to be gained by beating you within an inch of your life? If the Inquisitor wishes your imprisonment and service to the Inquisition to be miserable, I can think of far more efficient ways to do this that don’t involve physically harming you.”

Samson is stunned to silence for a moment, and before he can press further, Hadiza returns to Dagna, who begins to explain how she plans to give Hadiza a newer and more powerful staff. Hadiza smiles as Dagna begins sketching out a design based on the schematics the Inquisitor found on his travels. She points with her uninjured hand, and they chatter excitedly over blade design, types of foci, metal instead of wood, and Samson watches her. Once, twice, their eyes meet, and she looks away first.

When the Inquisitor calls her away, Hadiza does not look back.

But the undercroft is no longer so cold.

* * *

**III.**

She visits him often, tending to his hurts, but most of the time, she visits him to talk. When Dagna is not using him, and when he is not breaking his back laboring around Skyhold, Hadiza sits and talks with him. He is not brave enough to approach her publicly, and knows she would not dare damage the Inquisitor’s reputation being seen conversing with his ilk, but it is enough that she braves the chill of the undercroft to see him.

It is enough to know she thinks of him often enough to visit.

Sometimes she will sneak him choice bits from the kitchens, not the slop he and other prisoners are fed, but real food. A basket of crusty bread, perhaps a wedge of cheese, a small bunch of grapes. Samson eats heartily while they talk, savoring the softness of the bread, the smoothness of the cheese, the burst of sweet life in the grapes. At first, their talks take the form of tentative first steps toward real conversation. She asks him about his health, he gives her cursory answers. Eventually, though, he asks _her_ questions.

“How’d a girl like you get mixed up in all this? Shouldn’t you be out fighting templars with the other rebel mages?” He waits for her answer, knowing his judgement of her hinges on it. Hadiza shrugs, wincing as she stills her injured arm in its sling.

“When the Circles fell, Ostwick was the last to remain loyal,” she explains, “but even that was not enough to hold it together as demand for more templars in the field grew. Unable to manage us, the Circle emptied. The knight-commander took me and a few other mages with him to the Conclave.” She falters afterward, and Samson sees a familiar fear in her face, a flash in her silver eyes, like a fish beneath a river’s water, quick enough that a blink would make one miss it. He waits and Hadiza tightens her fists on her knees.

“We never made it to the Conclave, but the knight-commander went on ahead,” she continues, “so the rest of us opted to find shelter. We were heading to the Crossroads.”

Samson nods. “And the Inquisition came through and swept you up, eh?”

Hadiza smiles. “In a manner of speaking. They were short on healers, and needed skilled healers to tend to their small but growing force at the time. I saw an opportunity to help and to remain safe from the pointless war.”

“And what of your friends?” Samson asks, “They come with you?”

Hadiza is silent. “No.” She says after a moment. “They said they would rather help their fellow mages fight for freedom than be yoked to the Chantry ever again. I can understand their sentiments, especially when we received news of what happened n Kirkwall. But…this war has done more harm than good.”

“War is ugly, girl,” Samson snaps, “there’s no clean way to fight it and no clean way to win it.”

“The Conclave was supposed to put an end to it!” Hadiza snaps back, “It was supposed to be an opportunity for reform and…” She looks at her hands, remembering.

“I should go.” She says quickly, rising, and Samson worries that he has upset her. He tries to find her gaze but she pointedly avoids it. He wants to stop her, to take her arm, and beg her to stay. But as defeated as he is, he will not beg. And so he watches as she leaves and wonders just what she saw looking at her soft hands.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To continue.

**IV.**

He learns in the coming months that Hadiza had never killed a man until she left the Circle. He understands, when he learns this, the fear he saw in her, the fervent passion with which she denounced the rebellion and the subsequent war that followed. When she visits him again, he apologizes to her. She smiles, shaking her head.

“It was foolish and naive of me to think war could ever be conducted bloodlessly,” she tells him, “we…we learn destructive magic in the Circle. Spells to harm. Fire, ice, lightning, earth, and spirit. I can kill a man by making him see his worst fear, but I can heal that same man of that madness if I choose.” Hadiza laughs, but it is bitter.

“Is it any wonder why the world fears us?” She asks him, “And the first time I killed a man, it wasn’t even with magic.”

Samson waits, letting her translate her thoughts. He listens intently, learns to strip away the surface to get a glimpse of the woman beneath.

“He and his band attacked us on the road.” She says, “And he came after me, even after I warned him. It happened so fast. One moment he was bringing his axe down…the next, I’d run him through with my blade. It sank into him so easily…and then there was so much blood. I’ve healed bloody wounds before, even helped deliver babies, but this was different.”

“It always is,” Samson agrees, “killing a man with cold steel is not like patching up a wound.” Hadiza swallows hard and remembers the man before her has a body count made of flesh and blood, with families that will never see that flesh and blood again. For a moment, a very brief moment, she hates him. She hates that she likes talking to him, hates that his presence is…relaxing to her, that he is able to take the yarn of her thoughts and spin them into tapestries, into something she can see and understand and agree with.

“I watched him die,” Hadiza says firmly, “and the Inquisitor told me later than it gets easier, killing men, but it doesn’t. I’d rather kill demons. At least I won’t see that man’s face every time a demon screams at me.”

Samson smiles grimly. “Aye. You’re not a killer, that’s for sure. And I can tell you know your way around a blade. More than any mage I’ve met aside from Maddox.”

Hadiza flushes beneath her skin. “Yes, well, before I was just a mage my parents wanted me to be…something else.”

Samson’s brows raise up, intrigued. “Yeah? And what’s that, princess?”

Hadiza’s eyelids flutter at the moniker, but she does not dismiss it.

“Well, if you must know, I was to be a templar.”

Samson laughs. “You? Maker’s shitting Breath I can’t see it.”

Hadiza frowns. “I’ll have you know I was one of the best fighters in my age bracket. Could quote the Chant like I wrote it myself, and the knight-commander was planning to choose me and my sister before I…well.”

Samson crosses his arms and leans back against the wall.

“Can’t see you as a warrior type,” he says, “you’re far too gentle and soft.”

“Do you mean to insult me?” She demands dangerously, eyes flashing. Samson chuckles.

“Not at all, princess,” he assures her, “just saying your kind is a rare and honest thing to find in this world. Everyone’s out for something. Even you wanted protection from the war, but…you’re helping. Bet there’s a lot of thankful soldiers out there who can go home to their families because you’ve helped.”

Hadiza smiles shyly. “Perhaps,” she accedes, “but…it seems my skills as a healer are needed far less of late. Once the Inquisitor saw I could fight, he began to take me with him on expeditions. He began to wish for me to take life as oppose to saving it.”

Samson snorted. “And why not? It’s what I’d do.”

Hadiza frowns, but Samson can’t see the bloom of true anger in her eyes. “What use would your army have for a healer? I know what red lyrium does. I have seen it. Not all are resistant as you are.”

Samson freezes, waits for the familiar pain in his gut from corruption, but it is dormant. Whatever Hadiza and Dagna have done, has slowed it enough that he can barely feel it on the move. Still, he does not miss the subtle dig. So she has judged him as well. It is not as if he does not deserve it, but somehow her judgement—subtle or no—stings more than the Inquisitor’s.

“No,” he agrees quietly, “I know too well not all the men are resistant to the taint as I am. But you would have eased their transition far better than I was able to. A man can chew on elfroot as much as he likes, but the fire in the gut still burns. But you…” Samson thinks for a moment, “You would have laid those gentle hands on each and every one of them, and they would have thanked you. It would have given them more hope than my words alone could ever do.”

Hadiza stares at him, wide-eyed.

“And what makes you think I would have willingly let you…do what you did to those people?” She asks, “What makes you think that even if I were willing to ease the corruption of those men that I would condone the innocent lives you took?”

Samson feels shame burn beneath his skin, a fever for which there is no curative, it runs through his blood, and his mouth is dry with it. He sees the quiet intensity in her gaze, the fierce determination. Maker, there is _steel_ in her! Had he recruited her to his cause she would have fought him tooth and nail.

He would have been forced to kill her.

“You would have resisted,” Samson said, almost sneering, “even when you knew you’d be killed. But I wouldn’t have forced you to.” He looks away from her. “I’m not the Chantry. You make the choice to join the cause, or you don’t.”

“Bullshit.” Hadiza says, her voice a black snap of power, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t sell me that shit and call it gold, Samson. You captured countless noncombatants. You force-fed them red lyrium and turned them into grotesque gardens for harvesting. Was that _their_ choice? Or yours?”

“It was a choice I made for the good of my cause!” Samson snaps, “I knew what I was about. Who are you to judge?”

Hadiza purses her lips. “So you feel no remorse for the lives lost? I am not the Maker, Samson. My judgement carries no weight.”

She’s lying, but she doesn’t know it yet. Samson doesn’t let himself dwell on it.

“I took only their criminals, at first,” Samson admits quietly, “the ones they had no intention of setting free. But these backwater villages don’t get much crime. And we couldn’t sack any cities. So I sent them to take anyone they could. Take the old and the sick, leave the women and children.”

Hadiza’s hand goes to her mouth, and Samson can’t face her horrified stare.

“I thought if I took the ones near death already, it wouldn’t be like I was killing them.”

Hadiza is trembling, and Samson cannot tell if it is fear or rage.

“You…you thought you were granting them mercy?” She whispers, disbelieving. Samson burns with shame, wants its flame to turn him to ash so he doesn’t have to face that look on her face. But something forces him to look at her, and he shuts his eyes, bowing his head, an answer that needs no words.

“Maker…” Hadiza says in a hushed whisper, “Samson that’s monstrous. All those people…”

He can’t speak to her. If he does, she’ll leave, and she’ll take all that kindness and compassion and light and give it to someone else. He doesn’t want to tell her how she’s become so easy for him to need, that these little visits of hers are the one comfort he has left in a world that wanted him dead. He says nothing, waiting for the inevitable.

“The Inquisition cannot bring those lives back,” Hadiza says at last, sounding as if she has been fighting something in her throat, “but perhaps I can suggest to Ronan that you do something as recompense. It will never be enough, but…” She’s thinking, he can feel it. She’s already formulating a plan.

“It ever occur to you that maybe I’m just a terrible person?” Samson asks her, interrupting her thoughts. She meets his gaze, her expression unreadable.

“That can’t be entirely true,” she tells him, “because if it were…you would not have to tell me.”

Samson is silent. “Perhaps I like you enough to warn you that I’m a lost cause.”

“And perhaps you’re trying to warn me off because you’re afraid.”

“Afraid of what? You? Don’t be ridiculous, girl. You’re dangerous, but not to me.”

Hadiza frowns, sitting up a little straighter, and something flashes in her eyes, sunlight glittering off the edge of a well-honed blade.

“You are a coward and a fool, Samson,” she says to him, “because you are afraid of life. You have always been afraid of life. You were willing to die for Corypheus. You knew once your purpose was fulfilled, he’d discard you.” Hadiza’s voice is biting, angry, and Samson feels the truth slip between his ribs like an assassin’s dagger.

“You were going to let withdrawal kill you had I not stepped in,” Hadiza continues, “and even now, with the very possibility of being able to do something to recoup the losses suffered at your hands…something worth it…you shy from that. You want to die, Samson? Cold and alone? You want to turn aside compassion because your own self-pity is so much more appealing? More comfortable?”

Samson snarls soundlessly. “It was ever my fate to die cold and alone, girl.” He snaps quietly, “Just like every other prisoner in this place. Yet you chose me specifically. Why?”

Hadiza says nothing for a moment.

“Ronan has charged me with ensuring you don’t attempt to go back on your word.” She says simply.

“What makes him think I’d…” Samson starts but then stops at her expression, “…you really think so little of me that I’d do something like that, eh? After all this time even?”

Hadiza shakes her head. “No. I don’t think you would go back on your word, Samson. Whatever else you are, you are not a…you are not like others I have encountered.”

He smiles, but there is no mirth or humor in it.

“So what now? You use your charm and beauty to get me to talk?”

He sees her eyelids flicker, once. So that’s her dual-purpose, then. She heals him, lures him into a sense of security, and then charms him into giving him information.

And of course it worked, because he is foolish and old and lonely and she is so guileless in her compassion that it took nothing to disarm him.

“You could have simply asked, you know,” he says, surprised that he is not even angry at her deception. Hadiza smiles sadly.

“Would you have answered?” She replies, her voice quiet. Samson wants to reach for her, to take her hand, lace her fingers with his. It is an impossible fantasy. He has seen the way Ronan looks at her some days.

“Probably not.” He says at last.

* * *

**V.**

The first time they kiss, Samson is already telling himself that she would never want him. Not after what he’s done.

They stand in front of the waterfall, the clean sent of snowmelt and untainted stone around them, the misty droplets clinging to her ink-dark hair like stars caught within the strands. It’s quiet, quieter than it has ever been between them. She asks him if he feels strong enough to fight.

“No,” he admits, “don’t think I’ll ever be what I was before. Even you can’t work that miracle.”

She leans on the carved railing, smiling.

“I work no miracles.” She tells him, amused. Samson snorts, doubting her humility. She has—alongside that damnable dwarf friend of hers—slowed his corruption to an imperceptible crawl. He can ascend the steps of the keep without losing too much breath, and though there is still a fiery burn in his lungs, it is not something he is incapable of overcoming. She has worked a miracle where there should have been only death.

“And you?” He asks, “You feel strong enough to fight?”

Hadiza steps closer to him, her expression caught between a laugh and hesitance.

“No,” she says softly, “I don’t think I ever was. Don’t think I want to.”

His hands find hers, and he wishes he could kiss her fingertips, breathe some of that templar strength and courage into her. But she doesn’t need it. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s a fighter, same as he. She wouldn’t still be here otherwise.

“You’re not a quitter, Hadiza,” Samson tells her, “I’ve got that much wit left to me to see that. If you were, I’d be dead.”

Hadiza laughs. “And you give yourself too little credit. You want to live, don’t you, Samson?”

Yes. Yes he does. But he can’t fathom living without her. When the Inquisition’s business is done, he will die and she will travel far beyond this place, existing only in his memory.

He’s afraid.

Hadiza laces their fingers.

“What happens to you, when all this is over?” She asks, breathing into life the question he dreads answering. He fixes her with a look that gives her the answer she requires. She looks away.

“Oh.” She says. “After all this, that’s your fate?”

Samson doesn’t answer, but he feels her hands squeeze his. Determination, fierce and quiet like she is.

“I told you not to worry about me, princess.” He says softly.

“Can’t help it.” She returns with a smile. Samson leans in, close enough that she can feel the moist warmth of his breath against her ear.

“You should try,” he tells her, a grin in his voice, “for me.”

Hadiza turns her head, brushes her lips against the defined bone of his cheek, heedless of the stubble. She applies the barest pressure and Samson feels as if the petals of a flower are against him. Maker, she’s as soft as he’s imagined. Her smile spreads along his skin as she leaves the signature of the sun along the planes of his face.

“I don’t want to.” She whispers and Samson turns is head to kiss her.

The kiss is the first, full breath of spring after a long, dark winter. She tastes like honey on the tongue, an earthy sweetness that is slow moving and languid. He wants it to spread in his blood, wants to taste nothing but this till the end of his days. Her lips are the soft petals of new blooms, and he takes the lower one into his mouth, gentle as he can manage, runs his rough tongue along its supple length, and grins as she makes a soft noise of approval.

At some point his arms come around her, and her body grows heavy, the lush weight of her a welcome burden. She clings to him in the expanse of the kiss, and he feels something let go of him, feels himself untethered, spiraling into eternity.

And then she pulls away, silverite eyes wide with wonder, lips parted, her breath fogging in soft pants as she searches his face. Her fingers go to her lips and Samson can feel her processing it, wishes so badly to go back to kissing her before she realizes what she’s done.

“Maker…” She whispers, but she is not horrified, as Samson expects. Her voice is suffused with an almost delighted wonder. “I…”

Samson doesn’t want her to speak and yet wants her to say everything. Yes, tell him, please. Tell him everything the moves along the live wire of your thoughts.

Samson knows, as she flees the undercroft, that he has tasted something far, far more potent than lyrium.

Longing.

* * *

**VI.**

They are out of control.

The kiss was only the catalyst, but now they have shirked civility for savagery. Hadiza tastes of spring and honeysuckle, and he tastes of earth and the sour saltiness of sweat. She does not care. The kisses are tentative, exploratory, and they trade lips for various planes of skin. He tastes the hammering cadence of her pulse, drinks down the bright epicenter where her moan comes from along the tender arc of her throat. Little by little, they strip one another of everything and soon kisses become bites, and he buries himself inside her, relieved and aching, shuddering from the lure of what was once forbidden to him.

And Hadiza…Maker. For all her sweetness, she is molten beneath the skin, turning to magma beneath his knowing hands, shutting her eyes, fighting to cling to her composure as Samson works her with lips, tongue, hands, and his cock. He smiles when she bites her lip until it bruises, covers her mouth with his hand when he takes her against the wall, her hot breath panting through her flared nostril as he brings her to climax.

Weeks of this. Talking, kissing, fucking. He wants her all the time. In the days she is away, called to service by that damnable Inquisitor, he is sick with envy. He wants her time—all of it—for himself. He wants to hold her freely, out in the open, wants to tell Ronan to stop looking at her like that. Samson wants to be able to make her laugh in public, to kiss her so he can drink down that laughter, carry it with him throughout the day. It makes the day slip faster, makes dealing with the cold anger in Skyhold so much easier.

But he can’t, because everything that happens between them is secret.

But she rebuffs Ronan’s advances with ease, and Samson smiles to himself as he pictures her playing the shy and coy mage, lowering her eyes, flushing beneath her skin like a young girl. But he knows her. He knows her better than Ronan. Knows that those hands—hands the healed or killed—were capable of infinite compassion, and she gripped his cock as sure as if she owned it. Maker, he wants to tell her she does. He knows her because when she rides him, she is freer than he’s ever seen her, and he lets her control him, lets her pull the proverbial leash she’s got on him. Samson comes for her, spends himself until he’s shaking and empty, and she kisses him softly; his brow, the tip of his nose, his lips. She tells him he’s good, and he believes her.

It is hard not to go to her in public. Hard to keep his eyes off her when they see one another around the keep. He watches her laugh free and unfettered amidst Ronan and the others, watches her train with the other mages, and secretly swells with pride as she improves and excels in combat.

In the space of a year, they find Corypheus, and soon she comes to him, but there is no kiss, no fuck, nothing that can shake the gravity of what is to come.

“It’s time.” He says as she leans against him, sharing his cot. They are fully clothed against the chill, and Hadiza is reluctant to move.

“I know.” She whispers. She is to leave with the Inquisitor in an hour, but Samson knows she doubts the odds of her own survival. In truth, he doubts them too, but he will never give voice to self-doubt. Never again.

“You have to go, princess,” he murmurs, “and when you come back, you tell me about it.”

Hadiza laughs, mirthless, tremulous with fear.

Samson wants to, again, breathe some of that templar courage into her. But his Hadiza is brave, even if she doesn’t know it yet. He’s heard the stories. She and the Inquisitor have faced dragons. He’s seen her fight. She’s as fierce as one.

“Will you think less of me if I say I want to stay here? That I am afraid to go because I may not…” She doesn’t finish but Samson knows. He presses a kiss to her temple, breathing deep the scent of the rose that clings to her hair.

“I couldn’t think less of you if I tried,” he tells her, “but you and I both know you won’t let the others claim they kicked Corypheus’ ass. You’re as prideful as any warrior.”

“Think so, hm?” She muses and Samson gives her shoulders a squeeze.

“Oh I know it,” he says firmly, “aside, Ronan will be very disappointed if you’re not there to keep him from dying.”

“He has Cassandra.” Hadiza says dismissively. “I swear that woman is immortal…”

Samson laughs. He remembers the Seeker vaguely, and is somewhat glad he’s never had to face her. No one wants their ass kicked by a woman who used a dragon to kill another dragon.

“That he does,” Samson agrees, “but he _needs_ you.”

Hadiza sits up to look at him. “And you? Do you need anything, Samson?”

“A really long back rub would be nice, princess,” Samson says with a grin, “you’ve been rather…enthusiastic this week.”

Hadiza frowns, shoving him playfully as he chuckles.

“Don’t worry about me.” He tells her.

“I can’t help it.” She says back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. :c

**VII.**

Skyhold is subsumed in tension. The Inquisitor has taken his inner circle and any men Cullen can afford to spare to face off against Corypheus. Ronan Adaar is ruthless in battle, and Samson is confident he will succeed.

He needs him to succeed.

The sky bleeds from the gaping wound torn anew by an uncaring hand, and Samson watches, shivering as he imagines the battle being waged for the fate of the world. In the time it takes, Samson thinks of his life. The summation of it can be boiled down to one fatal mistake: empathy. He cared for someone the world told him he should not, and the world spat on him for it. The invisibility he faced in Kirkwall, being seen as just another guttersnipe in the slums, made him realize he is nothing without his armor to define him.

He is a templar. What else is he without his shield and sword? The world took everything from him and he found out: nothing. 

But Hadiza doesn’t think so, does she? Samson returns to his cell, remembering how curious she had been about the man he was before, and he regrets now his reticence on the subject. He tells himself that there is a time and a place for revealing that to her, but not here…not under these circumstances.

Time stretches on and Samson worries. This is a final battle, there will be word or there will be fire. Either way, it ends tonight. And then after, when Ronan and his band return, victorious, she will move beyond his reach.

What is he without his shield and sword? Without the templar knighthood he worked so hard for? Nothing.

What is he without _her_?

Samson shies from the answer, alerted by the trumpets announcing that the Inquisitor has been sighted. The sky is sealed again, this time for good. Corypheus is dead.

It is ended, then.

Samson moves slowly, passed by the throng of eager denizens who do not deign to see him this night, and he is reminded of Kirkwall, and how invisible he had become in those days. For once, the thought does not tinge his tongue with bitterness. For once, he is content to be invisible, and watches as the Inquisitor marches in, flanked by his compatriots. He is wounded—they all are—but they are alive. Samson does not cheer, does not clap, and searches their number for her face.

She emerges, supported by Dorian and Vivienne, looking worse for wear.

She is alive. And that is enough. But Maker, she is a mess.

Samson waits, bides his time. With Skyhold occupied with the revelry, he knows where to find her, and he lingers on the fringes as the healers tend to her wounds, assessing the damage. She waves them off weakly, laughing.

“I assure you,” she says in that voice he knows it her pride compensating for her pain, “I will be fine. Go. Enjoy the party. We have all earned a respite.”

“Aye,” one of the healers say, “but His Worship will be cross if he finds you too wounded to attend.”

Hadiza laughs and Samson wants to bottle the sound because he is relieved that she can still do so.

He steps into a shadowed alcove as the healers leave, waits as they turn the corner, and then slips into the infirmary. Her back is to him, and she’s washing her hands in a bowl. He can smell the stinging unguents used on the cuts she sustains, and her ribcage is bandaged and bloody. But she is here, and she is alive.

“I knew you’d find me.” She says, low and amused, and it pulls a smile out of him, like finding the loose thread to make him unravel. Never has he ever accepted so eagerly the hold of anything or anyone like the one she has on him.

“You stand out like a damned jewel amongst rocks, princess,” he says attempting to calm his nerves as he closes the distance between them, “not hard to find you.”

Hadiza turns to him, slow and deliberate, her smile tarnished by a grimace. He watches, knowing she is trying to overcome the pain. He reaches for her with tremulous hands, and she comes into his arms as if she belongs there. He never wants her to leave, but he knows she’s not meant to stay.

“You missed me.” She states as if it is pure, inescapable fact. Samson grins into her hair.

“I might have,” he says, “but I’ve been awful busy while you’ve been off saving the world.”

Hadiza looks up at him but he devours her words, opting for a kiss instead. She indulges, lets time ebb and flow around them, tightening her embrace carefully.

Cullen finds them like this, and the spell shatters.

“Are you mad?” His voice is rigid with a disquieted anger, a candle flame that is usually steadied, but now is disturbed by an unusual breeze. Hadiza pulls away from Samson, slightly embarrassed, but not of him. Not of what they have. Samson refuses to believe she could ever be that.

“Commander…” Hadiza starts and Cullen is not looking at her, but at Samson.

“What do you think you’re doing, Samson?” Cullen demands, stalking toward them. Samson instinctively attempts to put himself between the Commander and Hadiza but finds her standing between them instead.

“Commander, stop.” She says, her words carrying the bite of authority, “It’s not what you think.”

“Not what I—Hadiza do you have any idea what could happen if people knew? What could happen to the Inquisition if word got out that you and…and _him_ …” He can’t say, can’t wrap his tongue around the words. He cannot—will not—dare speak into existence the defilement he thinks this is.

“Last I checked,” Hadiza says firmly, “my personal life and what happens within it is not the business of the Inquisition. Aside, I value discretion. We’re both well aware of the risks.”

Cullen is incredulous, bewildered, and disgusted. Samson knows disgust when he sees it and Cullen makes his obvious.

“The Inquisitor plans to have him executed when this is all over, Hadiza,” Cullen says and Samson swears for a brief instant, that there is some grim satisfaction in the other man’s voice. Hadiza’s face goes ashen gray for a brief moment, her lips parting around a withering gasp of abject horror.

“Why would Ronan do that?” She asks quietly, “There’s no merit in it. Why would he do that?”

Cullen frowns, meeting Samson’s eyes.

“That you need to ask if proof you are not fully aware of the risks. He has served his purpose, Hadiza, and Ronan feels that he can appease our allies by giving them what they want: his head. It is not the course of action I would have recommended.”

“Then tell him to reconsider!” Hadiza snaps. “Enough blood has been spilled. Corypheus is dead. What more could they possibly want?”

Samson has no words to add to this grim revelation. He knows—has always known—in his heart of hearts, that this was his fate. There is no possibility that the Inquisitor will allow him to remain alive. The weight of his crimes are too heavy for the punishment to be anything less than his death. Kirkwall calls for his blood, as do Orlais and Ferelden. He can hear them, a thousand dead throats crying out for justice for the crimes he has committed.

And the discordant and determined whisper of one woman who will deny them.

“There’s nothing I can do to sway him, Hadiza, you know him.” Cullen’s eyes are sad, sympathetic, and Hadiza shakes her head.

“Then I will speak with him myself.” She says. Samson does stop her, then.

“Don’t.” He tells her and she meets is gaze sharply, eyes flashing in defiance. “Don’t. Not for me, princess. Don’t risk your good standing for my sake.”

“For once he talks sensibly,” Cullen agrees, “it’s not worth you being thrown out, Hadiza. I realize that you’ve come to…care for him as your charge, but he is what he is. And he will answer for it, one way or another.”

Hadiza says nothing, glancing between the two men. Wordlessly, she leaves the room, throwing on her tunic as she goes.

“I was certain she would listen to you.” Cullen says when she’s gone. Samson laughs.

“If you think I’ve been the one giving orders, you aren’t paying attention, Rutherford.”

 

* * *

 

 

**VIII.**

Hadiza finds Ronan in the midst of a lively conversation with Josephine. When he sees her, still in her traveling clothes, limping, he frowns and excuses himself to come to her.

“The healers told me you should be resting,” he chides her, “you’re not missing much of the festivities. Crowd’s all but cleared.”

“We must speak.” Hadiza says firmly, “Privately if you can spare a moment, Inquisitor.”

Ronan looks down at her, searching her face for some sign that was never there. He frowns, and gestures for her to join him in an adjacent room near Josephine’s office. The din is muffled as they shut the door behind them, standing in a dimly lit hall. Ronan ducks to avoid scraping his horns along the low ceiling.

“Is something wrong?” He asks her, “You look upset.”

Hadiza searches for an angle, and finding none, punches through.

“Is it true you plan to have Samson executed after this?” She asks him. Ronan is taken aback a moment, eyes flickering. When Hadiza keeps her gaze steady, however, he knows he cannot lie to her.

“You spoke with Cullen, I’m assuming.” Is all the answer he will concede to her. Hadiza balls her hands into fists, wants to beat on his broad chest and scream, but instead she trembles, a vessel of flesh and bone containing the volcanic energy of betrayed fury.

“Why, Ronan?” She asks, her voice quiet, struggling not to crack. “Why now? What was the point of me keeping him healthy if you only planned to kill him anyway?” Ronan’s brow furrows in confusion, unsure how to handle the rage she keeps tightly leashed to her. He can feel the heat of her, so close, so fucking _angry_. And over a man who should have been dead.

“He’s a war criminal, Hadiza,” Ronan laughs, “we can’t very well just leave him alive, can we? What will Orlais, Ferelden, and the Marches think? Besides, he’s served his purpose.”

Hadiza almost unleashes her anger but remembers her place.

“So that’s it? I pour all of my energy and time into healing him only for you to send him to the headsman’s axe? Does his cooperation not merit some semblance of…decency? Something that does not require killing him?”

Ronan begins to understand.

“Hadiza, what’s this really about?” He asks, probing, “Why fight for him? You yourself expressed horror at what he’d done. You were there. You saw the cages. The bodies. You read the letters yourself. Death is the only way out for him. And more than he deserves.”

She can’t argue that. She knows Samson must pay, knows it as surely as she knows that there must be another way.

“What if you had him clean up his mess?” She asks him. “What if he was forced to…to…make reparations in some way? Work for the Inquisition for the rest of his days?”

Ronan frowns.

“It’s a waste of time.” He says irritably, “No amount of reparations will put those families at ease. Their family members are dead, worse than dead, and most of them have nothing to bury. How would you feel if you knew he’d grown red lyrium out of your family members? Would you be content with him wandering about Thedas doing… _community service_?”

Hadiza looks down, hoping no tears fall.

“No.” She whispers, hating the taste of the truth in her mouth.

“What would you do, then?” Ronan isn’t finished with her.

“I’d kill him.” She says, “Or hurt him badly enough before I did. Maker, Ronan, this isn’t about vengeance.”

“No,” Ronan says, “it’s about justice. And that’s what I’m serving, Hadiza: justice. To the best of my ability. He’s going to the chopping block, and then hopefully that will quiet the unrest of our allies.”

Hadiza is quiet, feeling the hot, wet trail of tears on her cheeks. Ronan makes his way toward the door.

“Do you love him?” He asks simply and Hadiza’s heart does something both thrilling and terrifying when she realizes that she has always known the answer to that question.

“Does it matter?” She asks back. Ronan hesitates, takes a look at the darkling woman who nearly made him lose his head. He takes her in and she suddenly seems…diminished to him, the light in her dimmed somewhat.

“No.” He says, his voice cool and detached, “I suppose it doesn’t. Get some rest, Hadiza. Our work is far from over.”

Hadiza doesn’t move for a long time. The hallway is suddenly colder without Ronan standing there, but the chill in her bones is too deep to be attributed to the draftiness of Skyhold. She hugs her arms, caught in a crossroads of pride, shame, guilt, and despair.

The answer to the question did matter. But only to one.

 

* * *

 

 

**IX.**

Samson knows when they put him in the dungeon, that Hadiza’s battle is lost. He knows, when the quiet of the night falls over Skyhold and only the wind whispering through the mountains can be heard, that he is nearing the end of his time. The guards are lax, knowing he is no longer a threat, and they patrol with ease, discussing the night’s revelry.

He is to die at dawn. His blood will be the baptism to usher in the age of restitution after a long and difficult battle against the darkness. A mage Divine sits the Sunburst Throne, the first ever, and the Circles are to be reinstated along with the Order.

Samson will live to see none of this.

Hadiza comes to him later that night, and she waits on the other side of his cell, the bars separating them but it feels like an ocean. He wakes, feeling her there, and groggily goes to her. Her face is puffy, her eyes red. She’s been weeping.

“Princess.” He says by way of greeting and she smiles, fresh tears springing to her eyes. She leans against the bars, trying to get close…close enough to touch.

“They take you tomorrow,” she says quietly, “and…I tried to…”

“Shh.” Samson reaches through the bars, stroking her cheek with one knuckle. “I told you not to do that. But I’d be lying if I said I’m glad you tried, at least.”

Hadiza laughs. “The worst thing is…he asked me if I loved you.”

Samson freezes, hesitates, is thrown between disbelief, shame, and cynicism.

“I do.” She tells him. “Maker, I didn’t expect to but…I do. And I couldn’t tell him because I felt…he didn’t deserve to know before you did.”

Samson wants to kiss her but can’t, so he leans his head against the cold metal and breathes deeply, taking in her rich, clean scent, trying to imprint it on his memory before they take everything from him.

“You know,” he tells her quietly, “twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have let you give me this. Because I didn’t think I’d need or want it. But now? Maker, _now_ I don’t want to go. You’ve given me something I haven’t had for so long, princess.”

Hope. Love. The ephemeral beauty of passion. Things that twenty years ago he could have lived without. Now he wishes he’d met her sooner. She would have stopped him from making that mistake. But would he have listened? Would he have cared? He had been so angry, so bitter, so broken.

And all she’d done was given him a touch of compassion. Told him he was a good man. Appreciated whatever kindness she saw left within him.

“You don’t have to watch.” He tells her. “Don’t do that.”

Hadiza shakes her head. “I have to be there tomorrow, Samson. I have to say goodbye.”

Samson is delirious with joy, but weighed down with a new, irrational fear of death. Months ago he might have welcomed it, might have embraced it tightly, a mercy the Inquisitor refused to grant. Now, with hope blooming in his heart, a tender sapling, the Inquisitor seeks to grant it to him.

“Then let’s say goodbye, princess,” he says quietly, “when I go to meet the Maker tomorrow…I want you to know I’m yours. Never belonged to anyone before, but I think I’ve been yours since the day you eased my suffering.”

Hadiza laughs, tears falling from her eyes like stars, and Samson catches them on his fingertips.

“Samson,” she whispers but he brushes his fingertips over her lips.

“Raleigh.” He tells her. “That’s my name. Raleigh.”

The name is a ghost on his lips, one he thought buried too deep to be excavated without aid. But Hadiza opens her mouth and shapes it, gives it life, breathes _love_ into it. He wants to hear her say it forever, with that same soft look on her face, the wonder of something new suffused in her smile.

“Raleigh.” She breathes, “Are you pledging yourself to me, ser?”

Samson laughs quietly. “Can you accept the pledge of a dead man?”

Hadiza gasps. “Don’t jest!” She says in a broken tone. Samson smiles.

“I’m sorry.”

It’s a paltry apology for the things he’s done, but it balms the grievous wound of her sadness for a time.

“I accept your pledge, Raleigh Samson.” She says quietly, “If you accept mine.”

Samson’s brows raise. “And what are you offering, sweetling?”

Hadiza pulls back and brings her index and middle finger to her lips, pressing a kiss to the fingertips. Then, she smiles.

“Close your eyes.” She whispers and he does. She touches her fingertips to his brow and Samson feels warm flush under his skin. It is at once familiar and not. This same warmth is the one he feels when she is in his arms, skin to skin, sharing their breath in the cool air of the room. The warmth is the one he feels when she kisses him for the first time whenever she returns, cupping his face in her hands gently. He smiles languidly as he basks in the feeling, and then she takes her fingers away, leaving the lingering memory.

Samson opens his eyes.

“Oh, I _accept_.” He says, realizing belatedly that there is something hot and wet on his cheek. “What a gift, princess. Thank you.”

Hadiza smiles wordlessly.

The guards return.

“Lady Trevelyan,” one of them says, “time’s up.”

Hadiza’s smile wanes only slightly, and Samson swears the light in her diminishes with it. She leans against the bars gently and he comes close. She kisses his forehead.

“Goodbye, Raleigh.” She whispers.

“Goodbye, princess.” Samson says back and watches as the guards escort her out.

He doesn’t sleep that night, clinging desperately to the replay of memories he’s forged with her, trying to hold onto them as they dissipate like morning mist in the sun.

The morning dawns gray and grainy, and the sun is a ghostly lamp in the sky, weak and watery as clouds swirl with the threat of rain. Samson is fed his last meal, but he doesn’t eat it. There’s no point. The guards look grim, but there’s no sympathy for him. For Hadiza, perhaps, but not him. He deserves this, but she doesn’t deserve the resulting heartbreak.

Fitting.

They march him through the main hall, unhooded, bare headed for all to see, and then to the lower courtyard where the gallows awaits. He glimpses the chopping block, already stained with blood. A further survey and he finds the heads of Livius Erimond, Florianne de Chalons, and others mounted on pikes. A crowd has gathered. His is the last execution of the day, and Skyhold’s prisons are empty.

Cullen stands with a coterie of his men, looking grim but dissatisfied, and he sees members of the inner circle arrayed amidst the peasant folk.

And finally Ronan, the Inquisitor himself, who watches as Samson is led stumbling on leaden feet, up the steps to stand before the crowd. There is no compassion here, no sympathy, and no hope.

He can’t find her, and he is at once gladdened and disappointed that she is not there. His princess, his lady, the only person worth his time in this place.

The headsman forces him onto his knees, shoving him forward. Samson yields gracelessly, placing his neck on the rude wood of the block, feeling the stickiness of old blood on his skin, and smelling the stink of death from the basket just beneath his head. He is given only a view of the basket, but in the periphery he sees a flutter of white.

She’s there, a dark ghost amidst the crowd, and he turns his head briefly to glimpse her face. He has never seen a more beautiful sight than her, and he wants to die with that, knows that she is being brave for his sake. She wears a long veil over her head, the wind whipping her hair about her face, but he focuses on her nonetheless. There is love there, beneath the grief he already sees within her.

He remembers his pledge, and hers.

Hadiza smiles and mouths something, her lips shape his name one last time.

“Be brave, Raleigh.”

Samson smiles back and turns his head to look down at the basket.

He hears the whisper of steel as the axe is brought up, hears the collective intake of breath from the crowd. The axe comes down.

He wants to tell her how much he loves—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this AU definitely took a turn for the dark, but I was just...I don't know...I felt like that that's where it was headed in this case. When Hadiza isn't in control of the Inquisition, she can't circumvent the rules like she does in her canon. When someone else is calling the shots, sometimes life is cut short, as we know.
> 
> Leave your comments, questions, and concerns below!


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